Animals I Have Known

So I just put up a 25% off sale at my etsy shop, good through January! In related news, I've put together this book of my animal illustrations. A percentage of sales goes to the Washington Animal Rescue League.

an animal compendium by Becca Kallem | Make Your Own Book

Nick Cave

So great to see some of Nick Cave's "Sound Suits" in person at the Corcoran's 30 Americans show.

Free Veggieburgers!

So, I thought I'd post something for you to print out -- obv. a color printer w/nice card stock is best! Copy/save and print whatever size you like. Use as you will, just be sure to credit moi (Becca Kallem). Drumroll, please... I bring you: THE HAMBURGER LETTER. You can write a letter on this burger to mail or hand deliver to your beloved. Just don't eat it. But I guess it has lotsa fiber. Anyway, if you'd rather, you can also buy a pre-printed hamburger letter from my etsy shop.

don't forget the lettuce and bottom-bun:

Clare Grill, Annie Leibovitz and Josephine Halvorson

Clare Grill, E.T.

What a beautiful convergence here -- the living, human (or alien) presence of the object; and you can really, physcally FEEL both Leibovitz and Halvorson looking. I love Halvorson's idea of the painting/motif 'looking back.' Interesting -- the similar close-up, cropping in all three.

Annie Leibovitz, Emily Dickinson's dress from Pilgrimage

Josephine Halvorson, Concrete Chest

"Unlike her staged and carefully lit portraits made on assignment for magazines and advertising clients, the photographs in this exhibition were taken simply because Leibovitz was moved by the subject. The images speak in a commonplace language to the photographer’s curiosity about the world she inherited, spanning landscapes both dramatic and quiet, interiors of living rooms and bedrooms, and objects that are talismans of past lives...Visiting the homes of iconic figures including Thomas Jefferson, Emily Dickinson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pete Seeger, and Elvis Presley, as well as places such as Niagara Falls, Walden Pond, Old Faithful, and the Yosemite Valley, she let her instincts and intuitions guide her to related subjects—hence the title “Pilgrimage.”" Smithsonian American Art Museum

"Josephine Halvorson has an itinerant practice. She searches for objects willing to ‘look back’. Working perceptually on site, Halvorson’s paintings contain the reciprocities that develop between artist and object, and become testaments to time spent. The exchanges, which take place in a single session, test the limits of the body, witness the vagaries of weather and light, attract passing strangers, and - when materialized in paint - take on unexpected meanings. The works on view were made in places as diverse as Shoshone, California; Canaan, New York; Akureyri, Iceland; and Shoreham, England. Halvorson's explorations are not only geographical, but also psychological. Chance encounters with objects in their environments realize internal glimpses of paintings unmade yet somehow anticipated. Halvorson considers a painting successful when it asserts a life independent of its power to represent either the original object or the experience of its own making. She hopes these paintings return the attention that produced them and, as a group, evoke an everevolving narrative." Sikkema Jenkins Press Release

Allison Schulnik

Allison Schulnik, Cat Head

Allison Schulnik, Flower Mound

Above images from the Q&A at New American Paintings.

open studios!!!!!

My studio-mates Geoff and Sheppard and I are hosting a winter open studio Saturday, 11/19, from 3-6pm. You are invited to stop by to check out our work and partake of some wintry food and drink!

When:
11/19, anytime from 3-6pm

Where:
218 REAR 9th St SE
Washington DC
just a few blocks from Eastern Market, entry from the alley between 9th and 10th streets

closing reception/artist talk

Please Join Us!
Saturday, November 12th, 2-3:30 pm

If you haven't seen the show yet or would like to see it again, please come to our closing reception and talk. An informal conversation with some of the exhibiting artists begins at 2pm, followed by snacks and drinks.

HOPE CHEST features artwork by DC/Baltimore artists Mariah Anne Johnson, Becca Kallem, Chandi Kelley, Michelle McAuliffe, Erin Murray, Elle Perez, Katherine Sifers, and Dafna Steinberg. These emerging artists challenge and reinvent tradition, romance, gender roles/expectations, and sexuality. Their work also investigates what we keep, save, and treasure in contrast to what is discarded. Photography, installations, mixed media work, and paintings present the domestic, nostalgic, and personal in new contexts.

GreenHouse 11
1123 11th St NW
Washington, DC

This Satuday, 2-3:30pm

Questions? Email Becca Kallem at rebeccamarion@gmail.com